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WesBank Fund

WesBank is committed to supporting development initiatives that are directed towards the alleviation of poverty and the development of communities in South Africa.

The fund’s budget is largely dedicated to its focus on food security through agricultural livelihoods programming.

Food Security through Agricultural Livelihoods Focus

Funding guidelines

The Food Security through Agricultural Livelihoods (FSAL) focus is informed by a long-term roadmap. A 15-year journey is envisaged, taking us to the year 2030. This aligns the programme strategy to that of South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP). The route to 2030 is delineated by key milestones in 2019 and 2025, breaking the journey up into three equal portions of five years each. The fund is now embarking on the first five-year leg of the journey, beginning in 2015 and extending till 2019. This leg is referred to as the Masilimeni Programme.

The WesBank Fund has articulated a goal to be attained by the time we reach each milestone, as follows:

Vision for 2030
To make a definitive contribution to a key milestone cited by the NDP, namely: to achieve inclusive food security, where one-third of food consumed in South Africa is produced by small-scale and homestead farmers. This can only be achieved if South African communities, rural and urban, exhibit sustainable inclusive eco-systems of resilient food-productive micro-farming households.

Inclusive food security, where resilient small-scale farmers (working in economically-sustainable ecosystems) produce a significantly measurable proportion of the country’s fresh food. This can only be achieved if South African communities, rural and urban, exhibit sustainable inclusive ecosystems of resilient food-productive micro-farming households.

Goal for 2025
To grow networks of micro-farming households within targeted communities such that they are participating regularly and fully in local agricultural markets, thereby deriving livelihoods from their agricultural enterprise.

Goals for 2019: The Masilimeni funding programme
Goal 1: To grow a resilient network of micro-farming households in each targeted community by 2019.
Goal 2: To enable a resilient micro-farming hub in each targeted community by 2019.

On the horizon
The WesBank Fund is currently collaborating with the Department of Basic Education’s National Schools Nutrition Programme (NSNP) to explore ways in which sustainable food production in South Africa’s public schools can be enhanced.

Application and reporting deadlines

Applications for the Masilimeni Programme (2015-2019) are now closed.

Masilimeni grant recipients

All Masilimeni grants must be reported on in the required format,which has two parts:

An updated monitoring and evaluation (M&E) Performance Indicator Table (an MS Excel file), as submitted previously but updated with the “actual” figures for 2017; and

A more narrative Reporting Form (a pdf file which can be downloaded from a link below) which must be completed in full, and submitted together with a range of supporting documents which are itemised at the end of the form.

The current reporting period runs from 1 January to 31 December 2017 with the report due by close of business on 31 January 2017. The full report to the WesBank Fund, comprising the M&E Performance Indicator Table, the Reporting Form and all required supporting documents, must be emailed tofirstrandfoundation@tshikululu.org.za (thereport may be split across numerous email messages to ensure that no email message exceeds 8MB in size).